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Upton, Rebecca L., Ph.D.
- Faculty Bio

Upton, Rebecca L., Ph.D.

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Professor of Sociology and Anthropology

Rebecca L. Upton, PhD. (Brown 1999), M.P.H. (Emory 2014) is Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at DePauw University and coordinates the Global Health program. She has held the Edward Myers Dolan Professorship in Anthropology and the recipient of the Edwin J. Minar award for excellence in scholarship. In 2009-2010 she was a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Faculty at the University of Botswana and the Centre for the Study of HIV and AIDS in Gaborone, Botswana. She researches and writes on infertility and HIV/AIDS in northern Botswana, on the construction of work and family among contemporary American families and the intersections of qualitative and quantitative methodologies in her work in Africa and the U.S. She teaches a range of courses at DePauw including, Public Health in Africa, African Cultures, the Anthropology of Death, Gender & Anthropology, African Art and Museum Studies, the Anthropology of Contemporary American Culture, Ethnographic Methods, History of Anthropological Theory and Culture, Medicine & Health: an Introduction to Medical Anthropology.

Select recent publications include: Negotiating Work, Family, and Identity among Long-Haul Christian Truck Drivers: What Would Jesus Haul?: Family, and Identity among Long-Haul Christian Truck Drivers: What Would Jesus Haul? Lexington Books: Rowman & Littlefield Press (2016), "ARV Adherence vs. Cultural Compliance: HIV/AIDS Drug Therapy and Decision-Making among PLWHA in Rural Botswana"Journal of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Diseases. 3:1-6. (2016); "Fat Eggs and Fit Bodies."Contexts. Journal of the American Sociological Association. Vol. 15., No. 4, pp. 24-29. Fall (2016); "HIV Prevention, Infertility and Concordance in Partner Selection Among Infertility and Concordance in Partner Selection Among Couples Living with HIV/AIDS in Rural and Peri-Urban Contexts in Botswana."Journal of AIDS and Clinical Research 6:526. November (2015), “Fat Eggs: Gender and Fertility as Important Factors in HIV/AIDS Prevention in Botswana”, Gender & Development. Vol 18, issue 3, November 2010, pages 515-524. ,“Promising the Permanent Condom: Cautionary Notes on Infertility and Male Circumcision in an Era of HIV and AIDS”, Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies Vol. 24 No. 1. 2010, pages 101-117., “Using Fertility, Useful Infertility” in The End of Children, University of British Columbia press, 2011, and “Pedagogy of the Obsessed: Infertility, IVF and How the Search for Maternity Affects Teaching, Learning and a Feminist Self” in Maternal Pedagogies, Byrd and Green eds., 2011.

In between teaching and research she is at work on two books about gender in Botswana, Our Blood Does Not Agree: Negotiating Public Health and Infertility in an era of HIV/AIDS (Oxford University Press) and Tortoise Knees and Giraffe Tears: Rural Livelihoods and Gendered Resistance in Botswana-Patterns and Production in Women’s Basketry Cooperatives (Routledge) and is affiliated faculty at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health where she teaches courses in Qualitative Methods in Public Health.